Damon Hill addresses the 'Dick Dastardly' remark he made about Max Verstappen last season

F1 legend Damon Hill has addressed the 'Dick Dastardly' remark he made about Max Verstappen ahead of last season's Brazilian GP. The Briton has claimed that his criticism of the Dutchman's racing style stems from his own background in motorbike racing, where the laws are applied very differently.

Damon Hill has been very critical of Max Verstappen in the past, especially with regard to his driving style. This criticism of the 4x world champion from Hill has also been accompanied by heaps of praise for his achievements.

In a recent appearance on the coincidentally named Stay on Track podcast, Hill addressed a previous comment he made criticizing Verstappen. This was when he likened the driver to cartoon villain Dick Dastardly ahead of the 2024 Brazilian GP.

Hill has claimed that his criticism of Verstappen stems from his background in motorbike racing during his formative years, which is very different from karting.

"I was very critical [of Verstappen ahead of] last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix. I called him Dick Dastardly, who is the famous cartoon character, a fiendish character who resorted to foul means to gain an advantage in Wacky Races," said Hill. "I likened Max’s driving to that. But of course what he was saying was: 'Well, the rules say this'. I didn’t do karting, so this style of driving I didn’t get because I came from bike racing," he added.

Hill has admitted that he, at times, may have failed to appreciate how difficult it is to go wheel-to-wheel racing in F1 cars, even though he himself is a former world champion in the series. The 65-year-old also gave the example of Max Verstappen's incident with Lewis Hamilton at the recently concluded Mexican GP as an instance of hard racing, where the former "biffed Lewis out the way" in Hill's words.

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Damon Hill reflects further on Max Verstappen's incident with Lewis Hamilton in Mexico

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton on track during the Mexican GP - Source: Getty

Speaking on the aforementioned podcast, Damon Hill spoke further about Max Verstappen's incident with Lewis Hamilton at the Mexican GP, claiming there wasn't much wrong with it. The 1996 world champion explained that he would have been left shocked to see such an incident when he first began racing.

Hill gave his take on the Verstappen-Hamilton incident in Turn 1 in Mexico City, saying:

"There wasn’t anything in that. There wasn’t a penalty for Max. It was seen as a racing incident," said Hill. "When I came to car racing and I watched it for the first time, I could not believe how they went about things. They literally decided championships by one guy crashing into the other and everyone thought: ‘That’s decided that’," he added.

Hill, of course, is no stranger to such incidents, having been on the wrong end of one in 1994. During the season finale at the Australian GP, Michael Schumacher clipped the wall and then collided with Hill as the Briton attempted to pass.

The crash forced both drivers out of the race, handing Schumacher his first World Championship. This result is still viewed by many as controversial, with fans long debating whether the German’s actions were deliberate.

Edited by Riddhiman Sarkar